I am a newbie for sure, and this may be a newbie question, but ...

What program is the best to use to make disc images? Are there any advantages to one over another or is there one that most people tend to use?

Thanks.

BadASCII

It depends... An image can be made with a lot of programs. Which one is best depends on what kind of disc you're making an image of. For instance if you want to make an image of a copy-protected disc you should go for CloneCD but then again, BlindSuite can also do it. And then there's CDRWin that can also make an image of a copy-protected disc. And besides that we have the unprotected discs... Nero/CDRWin/CloneCD/you name it can make an image of these discs and they're all quite easy to use. Here's an overview of burnprograms and images they make:

- *.DAO (Duplicator), *.TAO (Duplicator), *.ISO (Nero, BlindRead, Creator), *.BIN (CDRWin), *.IMG (CloneCD), *.CIF (Creator), *.FCD (Uncompressed), *.NRG (Nero), *.GCD (Prassi), *.P01 ( Toast), *.C2D (WinOnCD), *.CUE (CDRWin), *.CIF (DiscJuggler).

Just to name a few...

Each image format must generally be copied with the appropriate program. For instance a .BIN image can't be written with CloneCD.

On the internet the most common images you can download are .ISO, .BIN (often a .CUE is included) and .IMG.

Finally we have programs such as IsoBuster which can unpack all mentioned image files to your harddisk so you can burn them as separate files...

Thanks alot...that helps out alot. Now, one last thing... Does it matter what CD ROM is reading the protected disc to make this image file? I don't know if that problem will fall on the image making program or the drive reading the copy-protected material.

Thanks alot... I know these questions kind of hint "newbie", but I don't want to screw up when I start doing these things. (A REAL newbie would be using whatever came with the CD burner to do everything without doing research first anyways, I feel...(Or at least it makes me feel better to say that..heh)

Yes it does. If the cd-rom is not capable of making protected images the cd-burner might be. Some generic off the wall burners have some major issues when trying to copy images or write protected images. Most good burners (plextor, teac, tdk,
liteon, etc.) dont have a problem with making a good backup of the cd, but you may need to install from the burner to play the game if it safedisc2. Stay away from Roxio Adaptec ez creator
it is a bloathog and it has been stated that Roxio doent condone backups that work correctly..

I'd have to agree with cloak... Stay away from Easy CD Creator and DirectCD... They can give you major problems. All software you'll need is:

-CloneCD (www.elby.de) for creating back-ups of copy-protected discs.
- Nero Burning Rom (www.ahead.de) for making your own (audio/data) compilations.

And maybe some other small apps for the mentioned image files... I use CDRWin myself for BIN and CUE files but Nero can also handle these files (inclusing .ISO). These are by far the most common used images.